1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector that has multiple one-piece terminals. Each one-piece terminal has excellent resilience to provide stable extension and retraction functions. Furthermore, the one-piece terminal is capable of linearly extending or retracting instead of extending or retracting along a non-linearly and irregularly path, which prevents the one-piece terminal from being deformed or damaged.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrical connectors are commonly used electrical components in electronic devices and allow the electronic device to connect to another one to implement signal transmission or power supply between the connected electronic devices.
A conventional portable electronic device such as a smart phone usually has a battery chamber and a spring-type battery connector. The spring-type battery connector, as disclosed in the TW patent publication No. 201332225, TW patent No. M418465 or TW patent No. M462453, is mounted in the battery chamber and has an insulative body and multiple terminal assemblies mounted in the insulative body. Each terminal assembly has a soldering terminal, a contacting terminal and a spring. The contacting terminal is bullet-like and able to contact a pad contact of a battery. The spring is mounted between the soldering terminal and the contacting terminal and presses against the contacting terminal to extend out of the insulative body. However, the terminal assembly with multiple components is complicated in structure and fabrication. Inadvertent dislocation between adjacent components easily occurs and causes the contacting terminal to be jammed and not able to extend or retract. Furthermore, when large current are transmitted through the terminal assemblies, the terminal assemblies are overheated and the battery connector fails due to an insufficient contacting area between adjacent two of the soldering terminal, the spring and the contacting terminal.
With reference to FIG. 7, TW utility model patent No. M346937 discloses a connector with one-piece terminals. The connector has an insulative body 70, a shell 80 and multiple terminals 90. The shell 80 covers the insulative body 70. The insulative body 70 has multiple mounting holes 71 defined therein. The terminals 90 are formed into one piece and are mounted respectively in the mounting holes 71 of the insulative body 70. Each terminal 90 has a soldering portion 91, a spring portion 92 and a contacting portion 93. The spring portion 92 is horizontally zigzag, is formed on and protrudes from the soldering portion 91, and has a connecting section 921 and two resilient sections 922. The connecting section 921 is parallel to an axial direction of the terminal 90. The resilient sections 922 are connected respectively to two opposite ends of the connecting section 921 and are resiliently foldable relative to the connecting section 921. The contacting section 93 is V-shaped and formed on one of the resilient sections 922. However, when the spring portion 92 of the terminal 90 is compressed, the resilient sections 922 pivots relative to the connecting section 921 such that the contacting portion 93 simultaneously retracts and sways left and right relative to the axial direction of the terminal 90. Therefore, the contacting portion 93 is retracted along a curvedly or obliquely non-linear path and is easily jammed in the mounting hole 71. Furthermore, the V-shaped contacting portion 93 contacts an inner surface of the mounting hole 71 by point-contact instead of area-contact such that the inner surface of the mounting hole 71 cannot guide or assist the contacting portion 93 to move along a linear path, which further increases a probability of the contacting portion 93 obliquely deformed and jammed in the mounting hole 71. The deformed or jammed contacting portion 93 of the terminal 90 cannot stably contact the pad contact of the battery and therefore causes the defects or failure of power or signal transmission between the battery and the electronic device in which the connector is incorporated. Furthermore, the connecting section 921 is a straight section being parallel to an axial direction of the terminal 90 and cannot be compressed, which disadvantages the compressing performance of the terminal 90.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides an electrical connector with one-piece terminals to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.